The latest in a series of interesting announcements from Cisco’s Quantum Labs research team is the Cisco Quantum Compiler prototype.
It is compiler software designed for distributed quantum computing across networked processors, as part of a larger prototype for an entire quantum computing software stack for networking. Cisco Quantum Labs is part of Outshift, Cisco’s ‘incubation engine’ where it works on new types of technologies, as well as interesting ideas and solutions for technology.
Why a compiler?
The base concept is for a quantum network that allows quantum computers, regardless of operating paradigm, to participate in solving a single problem. Even better, this new compiler supports distributed quantum error correction. Instead of a quantum computer needing to have a huge number of qbits itself, the load can be spread out among multiple quantum computers.
This coordination is handled across a quantum network, powered by Cisco’s Quantum Network entanglement chip, which was announced in May 2025. The quantum network could be used to create highly secure communications for traditional servers as well.
The biggest barrier to quantum computing
So why does that matter? The biggest barrier to quantum computing today is the quality and quantity of qubits available in a single quantum processor. Most of the amazing things quantum computers can in theory do require thousands or millions of qubits. Today’s quantum processors are about 1000 qubits, roughly.
The other problem is the quality of the qubits. Qubits are extremely susceptible to outside interference. Qubits need to be available in quantity as well as quality. To fix the quality problem, there has been a considerable amount of work performed on error correction for qubits. But again, most quantum error correction routines require even more qubits to create logical ‘stable’ qubits. Research has been ongoing across the industry – everyone is looking for a way to create large amounts of stable qubits. But the inclusion of distributed error correction in the Cisco prototype solution will keep that problem at bay in the quantum network itself.
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By GlobalDataMultiple computers
Here’s the proposition behind Cisco’s research in quantum networking. Instead of having to increase the qubit count on every quantum processor, they propose to use multiple quantum computers, network them together with quantum networking, and have them act as a single distributed quantum computer. Much like we create computing clusters with traditional computing.
Quantum processors will still need to add qubits, but this approach means that there is more than one way to get sufficient quantity and quality qubits. Overall, if the concept works out the way Cisco hopes, it will bring the day quantum computing becomes practical closer.
Is this the breakthrough needed to bring about the quantum computing revolution? No. At this point it’s a prototype; but it is extremely interesting, and enterprise technologists and IT infrastructure practitioners should keep an eye on developments in quantum computing and quantum networking.
